Dan Martell - May 01, 2017


How To Increase The Amount of Repeat Business

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Mario Kart
Time Management 101： Stop Managing Time How To Use Live Chat To Increase Sales

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

216.35

Word count

1,563

Sentence count

81


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

How do you increase the number of repeat customers in your business? How do you get more than one customer at a time and keep them as long-term customers? In this episode, I talk about how you can increase the churn of your business to keep them coming back.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Mario Kart.
00:00:01.440 Oh, man.
00:00:02.540 Oh, years.
00:00:03.960 I used to play Mario Kart, listen to...
00:00:07.000 It wasn't Nine Inch Nails, it was another one.
00:00:18.880 How do you increase the number of repeat customers?
00:00:22.700 That's what we're covering today.
00:00:24.360 You know, for me, I see these entrepreneurs
00:00:26.580 and they're frustrated because they've got
00:00:28.560 a lot of turnover in their business, right?
00:00:30.700 And when I asked them, I was like,
00:00:31.700 what's the lifetime value of their business?
00:00:32.980 They're like, oh, I don't want to talk about it.
00:00:34.180 It's like, why are you always doing new projects?
00:00:37.680 Why aren't you actually sitting down and saying,
00:00:39.160 okay, what can we do as a company, product or service,
00:00:41.920 to make sure that we have new opportunities
00:00:44.580 with our existing customers?
00:00:46.020 Because at the end of the day, here's what I've learned.
00:00:48.380 The purpose of a business is to create,
00:00:50.640 and here's the magic word, keep a customer, right?
00:00:54.020 And if you do it right, you have these long-term customers.
00:00:56.780 It allows you to plan better.
00:00:58.560 You have less challenges always trying to find new customers.
00:01:02.740 I really had to learn this lesson the hard way
00:01:04.440 when we were building my company Flowtown.
00:01:06.200 It was a social marketing application for small businesses.
00:01:09.900 And I remember we sat down and we looked at a thing
00:01:11.640 called the churn, right?
00:01:13.280 Those of you guys out there know, it's like,
00:01:14.640 churn is the most important number in building software.
00:01:17.420 And I'm looking at it and I remember calculating it
00:01:19.820 with my co-founder, I'm like, we have a 20% churn.
00:01:23.260 And he's like, is that good or bad?
00:01:24.720 And I said, well, here's a way to think about it.
00:01:26.360 With a 20% monthly churn, every five months
00:01:30.140 we lose all our customers.
00:01:31.960 He's like, that does not sound like a good business.
00:01:34.700 And I was like, I know, I was like,
00:01:36.740 on average a company should be at like
00:01:38.780 eight to 10% churn per year.
00:01:41.240 So we had to figure out how to change that
00:01:43.640 in fast and pronto, so that's what
00:01:45.480 I wanna share with you guys is a process
00:01:47.040 of how to think about it, and this applies to software,
00:01:49.280 service businesses, other types of companies,
00:01:51.760 to really think of how can you approach your customers
00:01:53.920 in a way that'll create repeat business.
00:01:56.620 Now, number one is you gotta offer an ongoing service.
00:02:00.000 You know, and I've seen this true for, you know,
00:02:02.700 agencies that do kind of one and done projects.
00:02:05.300 They don't think about what's the ongoing service
00:02:07.660 after the fact.
00:02:08.500 Maybe it's website maintenance, maybe it's whatever.
00:02:10.940 I mean, just this morning I had the guy
00:02:13.080 that manages my air filter.
00:02:15.100 He has a computer system that monitors all his customers.
00:02:17.540 He's like, hey, do you want us to change your air filter?
00:02:19.580 I was like, does it need to be changed?
00:02:20.640 He's like, yeah, it does.
00:02:21.480 And I'm like, cool.
00:02:22.320 He goes, well, we actually have a service plan.
00:02:23.920 I'm like, you have a service plan.
00:02:25.600 Do you tell me about your plan?
00:02:27.880 He's like, well, and it's three or something,
00:02:30.100 whatever bucks a year,
00:02:31.600 and we'll come every three months and we'll change it.
00:02:33.260 And I'm just like, you know what, sign me up.
00:02:35.160 He got me with the ongoing service
00:02:37.600 for somebody that installed my furnace.
00:02:39.780 That, I mean, everybody watching this
00:02:42.000 has an opportunity to think about
00:02:43.340 what's something that I could offer my customers.
00:02:46.620 And could it be something you're not even offering
00:02:48.320 that you have to do yourself,
00:02:49.600 but you can offer it to get a residual
00:02:51.160 to build that ongoing revenue?
00:02:53.700 Number two, I want you to start strong, okay?
00:02:56.980 What I mean by that is onboarding a new customer.
00:02:59.640 When you start with somebody, you wanna make sure that
00:03:01.600 experience of them getting started with your business is
00:03:04.720 awesome, that it's clear expectations, and here's what
00:03:08.100 you can expect, and making sure that they get the value as
00:03:10.840 fast as possible, right?
00:03:12.420 You have a core value in your business.
00:03:14.280 You have a customer who just signed up.
00:03:15.700 How fast can you get them to experience that core value?
00:03:19.880 Because that'll allow them to think about, like, man, these
00:03:22.460 people really know how to operate their business.
00:03:24.120 That was one of the first things we did in our company
00:03:26.300 to improve the churn numbers to make sure that our
00:03:27.900 activation rate, which is that, core value to customer,
00:03:31.460 was high.
00:03:32.400 Number three that you need to do is you gotta continue
00:03:34.940 adding value.
00:03:36.140 Some people, they think, well, I got a customer,
00:03:37.800 and they're good, and they're on the service,
00:03:39.040 and I don't need to talk to them.
00:03:40.780 That's crazy.
00:03:42.580 You need to ask yourself this question.
00:03:44.240 If you wanna grow your business, and this is not even
00:03:45.860 just about continuously adding value, you need to ask yourself
00:03:48.920 is how can I create more value for my customer than anybody
00:03:52.460 else in the world, any competitor, how do I do that?
00:03:56.000 Answering that question, especially implementing it
00:03:58.740 for your customers, is how you're gonna win this game.
00:04:02.200 Number four is end strong.
00:04:05.240 So even if there is an ending to the project,
00:04:07.540 and I'm gonna teach you what to do next,
00:04:09.440 you wanna make sure you end on the best note possible.
00:04:11.740 It means you wanna give them a report.
00:04:13.140 You wanna show them the value they've received.
00:04:14.820 You wanna make sure that they understand what went on.
00:04:17.860 Because there's this thing called the primacy
00:04:19.420 and recency bias, right?
00:04:20.920 It's why we always remember the first, second, and third
00:04:23.720 out of the list of three is the primacy is the first thing,
00:04:27.180 right, and that's why I say start strong.
00:04:28.780 Build your onboarding experience for your new customer.
00:04:31.320 Then end strong, which is a primacy because they're going to
00:04:33.460 only remember the beginning and the end.
00:04:36.120 Sure, there might be some challenges in the middle,
00:04:38.120 but typically that is their experience when they think to
00:04:40.520 themselves, how was it working with that company?
00:04:42.380 They're going to look at those two points.
00:04:43.640 So ending strong, making sure that they're happy.
00:04:46.360 Most customers or companies don't even think about this for
00:04:49.500 for their customers, and I think it is everything
00:04:51.940 because that bias exists at a human and psychological level.
00:04:55.380 The recency, primacy bias, go check it out,
00:04:57.840 so you wanna end strong, and then finally, number five,
00:05:01.340 you wanna make sure that you ask for more business.
00:05:03.880 You know, the funniest thing I see all the time
00:05:07.020 with companies is they've never actually gone back
00:05:09.560 to previous customers and asked them for more business.
00:05:11.780 They've never said, okay, once a quarter,
00:05:13.320 we're gonna reach out, we're gonna do it via video.
00:05:15.360 If you wanna watch my video on video re-engagement
00:05:17.860 on my YouTube channel, go check that out.
00:05:20.360 They don't think about like, how do I connect
00:05:23.200 and create value for them even after they're a customer
00:05:26.560 so that you can ask for the business?
00:05:30.440 Because that's, it's called TOMA, top of mind awareness.
00:05:33.940 In your market, when they think of the problem they're having
00:05:36.620 and you as a company could solve it,
00:05:38.380 they either think of you or they don't.
00:05:40.080 And that's what you want for every past customer
00:05:42.780 is to say, oh, I need a new design,
00:05:44.120 I gotta reach out to this agency.
00:05:45.520 I need to amplify my analytics or reporting
00:05:48.040 when I use this software.
00:05:49.160 Whatever it is, that's your opportunity.
00:05:51.380 You've got to ask for the business.
00:05:52.120 Now, finally, this is Ninja.
00:05:54.480 You want to know the number one tip
00:05:55.580 to make all of this magical is ask for a testimonial
00:05:59.540 and or, and this is what I do, is a case study
00:06:02.580 or essentially an interview that can act
00:06:05.600 as a testimonial and a case study.
00:06:07.140 And there's a really easy way to do it
00:06:08.400 using Skype or in person.
00:06:10.160 Grab a camera and just be like,
00:06:12.060 hey, what was your life before?
00:06:13.900 How did it work out?
00:06:15.020 What were the results?
00:06:16.480 What would you tell somebody that's sitting on the fence?
00:06:18.260 That's a quick level format for doing very easy case studies.
00:06:21.760 Companies like Airbnb pretty much built their business
00:06:25.260 on their host case studies.
00:06:26.860 If you go on, check that out.
00:06:28.060 I think that's an opportunity for everybody.
00:06:29.900 If you do everything else right and the customer doesn't
00:06:32.580 decide to do more work with you, who cares?
00:06:35.040 Get, well, who cares?
00:06:36.200 That's bad.
00:06:37.140 But get the case study, get the testimonials so that you can
00:06:40.640 make sure that other companies like that company see that
00:06:44.180 you've done work for them, that's your opportunity.
00:06:46.380 So what I want to ask you below is what are you going to do
00:06:48.580 to change all this?
00:06:49.780 What are you going to do to make sure you get repeat customers?
00:06:52.180 Answer that question below in the comments.
00:06:53.980 I'll be sure to answer every one of them.
00:06:56.080 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life
00:06:58.280 and a bigger business.
00:06:59.580 I'll see you next Monday. Cheers.
00:07:01.180 If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel.
00:07:03.480 I'd also invite you to join my newsletter where I share
00:07:05.780 exclusive invites to private events and also free training
00:07:09.580 videos and if you're ready to get going, I've got two playlists
00:07:12.380 cued up, ready for you.